DeepCwindies meet in Northport - news coverage & podcast of keynote
* Herald Gazette DeepCWind prepares for Monhegan turbine test.
* WCSH/WLBZ TV:Consortium discusses potential for offshore wind at Northport co...
From WCSH: At this time researchers say that there's enough wind off of the state's coast to produce levels of power equal to roughly 150 nuclear power plants. The goal of the consortium is to harness 3 percent of that energy over the next 20 years.
The University of Maine's Composites Center is currently working on a floating turbine and researchers say that they are looking to place it off of the coast of Monhegan Island by June of 2012. Eventually, members of the consortium hope to install a five-turbine, 25-megawatt wind farm in coastal waters.
Yet environmentalists are worried about what kind of effect those turbines will have on ocean currents and sea life.
"So much of marine life spends a lot of time in the larval state as plankton," said Ron Huber, who is the executive director for the environmental group Penobscot Bay Watch, "It's totally at the mercy of water currents and you want to be very cautious about anything that can disrupt or change the nature of those currents."
"We have fish tags and mammal tags," remarked Habib Dagher, who is director of the university's composite center, noting that tests are already underway at the proposed turbine test site, "so we're studying that before the turbine gets into the water and then when we put the turbine in the water, then we'll see what difference it makes and that's the only way to find out."
The Maine Public Utilities Commissions is already taking bids for the construction of the 25-megawatt farm. Supporters of the project say those bids are due by next May.
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Comment
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Comment by Ron Huber on October 20, 2010 at 11:07am
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I talked with Dagher after his presentation. He's bummed by my litigation, since otherwise it's all been a big lovefest for deepwater offshore wind. I told him to think of me as "friction", smoothing the bumps out of his plan. Then DeepCwind's lawyer and other heavies showed up, alarmed at our little chat. "Are you operating a recording device at this time?" one of them sternly queried, fiddling with her blackberry - someone must have seen me and the good doctor getting into it, noticed the Herald Gazette reporter listening and snapping pics of us, and sent in the recovery team.
No. I said. I'd notified them ahead of time that I was recording the presentations, but covertly taping conversations during the break? That's not cricket!
We finished out talk - I tried to cheer him up. Don't worry I said. You've got Jeff Thaler, here, of Bernstein Shur, repping you at Superior Court - he'll no doubt tear my case to little shreds. Right? But neither lawyer Thaler nor Dagher seemed amused. Anyway, he still won't budge on my negotiating offer that DeepCwind convene a grand panjandrum of arts who have painted at Monhegan over the last 50 or so years, these assembled folks to describe to the permit reviewers why Art matters. Why Beauty sometimes trumps Power.
But being an engineer, Beauty is apparently too incalculable for Dagher to believe in. So his plan pretends Monhegan is solely inhabited by, for and about lobstermen and bed and breakkies, and he won't negotiate. Tch tch.
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Comment by alice mckay barnett on October 20, 2010 at 9:42am
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put the turbine in the water, then we'll see what difference it makes and that's the only way to find out."
well land turbines found out in Mars Hill and Vinal Haven but does not stop future projects
Maine as Third World Country:
CMP Transmission Rate Skyrockets 19.6% Due to Wind Power
Click here to read how the Maine ratepayer has been sold down the river by the Angus King cabal.
Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting – Three Part Series: A CRITICAL LOOK AT MAINE’S WIND ACT
******** IF LINKS BELOW DON'T WORK, GOOGLE THEM*********
(excerpts) From Part 1 – On Maine’s Wind Law “Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine if the law’s goals were met." . – Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, August 2010 https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/From Part 2 – On Wind and Oil Yet using wind energy doesn’t lower dependence on imported foreign oil. That’s because the majority of imported oil in Maine is used for heating and transportation. And switching our dependence from foreign oil to Maine-produced electricity isn’t likely to happen very soon, says Bartlett. “Right now, people can’t switch to electric cars and heating – if they did, we’d be in trouble.” So was one of the fundamental premises of the task force false, or at least misleading?" https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-swept-task-force-set-the-rules/From Part 3 – On Wind-Required New Transmission Lines Finally, the building of enormous, high-voltage transmission lines that the regional electricity system operator says are required to move substantial amounts of wind power to markets south of Maine was never even discussed by the task force – an omission that Mills said will come to haunt the state.“If you try to put 2,500 or 3,000 megawatts in northern or eastern Maine – oh, my god, try to build the transmission!” said Mills. “It’s not just the towers, it’s the lines – that’s when I begin to think that the goal is a little farfetched.” https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/flaws-in-bill-like-skating-with-dull-skates/
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Hannah Pingree on the Maine expedited wind law
Hannah Pingree - Director of Maine's Office of Innovation and the Future
"Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine."
https://pinetreewatch.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/
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